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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657705">Shadow Puppets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/habenaria_radiata/pseuds/habenaria_radiata'>habenaria_radiata</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deal With the Devil, Early Game Low-Stat Protagonist, Followed By Extremely Direct Kiss, Horror Comedy, Indirect Kiss, M/M, Non-Standard Voodoo Doll Usage, Spoilers for April, Unconventional courtship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:46:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,075</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657705</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/habenaria_radiata/pseuds/habenaria_radiata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A new student arrives at Shujin.</p><p>Akira isn't quite sure what to make of him or his shadow.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akira Kurusu/Kazuya Minegishi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rare Pairs Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shadow Puppets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpieChaos/gifts">KelpieChaos</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Tetragram presents a sign,</em><br/>
<em>a sign to saviorize</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Turn around</em><br/>
<em>I'd like to know you<br/>
<br/>
</em>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
The next morning ushered itself in with a sense of normalcy that felt utterly unearned and undeserved. Classes were scheduled to continue without interruption. Some girl was standing at the vending machines complaining about how tired she was. Just yesterday, the sky had been shrouded in a mourning cloak of thick grey clouds that choked the horizon all day long; now, the sun seared down from above and baked the pavement, as if even it had already lost interest in grieving for the daughter so estranged, she’d thrown herself out of its grasp and into the lethal embrace of the cold, hard earth.</p><p>The world at large was ready to move on from Suzui’s failed suicide, and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since she jumped. Her attempt to write the final chapter of her life ended not with the defiant boom of a book slammed shut, but with a bored swipe across an e-reader.</p><p>She deserved better than that.</p><p>Akira slid the classroom door open and let himself inside, exhaustion dropping itself neatly across his shoulders the instant he was in his seat. He could already hear vicious little whispers about his pending expulsion, and a brief stab of irritation pierced his gut. How incredibly crass. They would <em>still</em> prefer to gossip about him right in front of his face after what had happened yesterday? Then again, maybe it was for the best. He wasn’t sure he could stomach listening to their inane gossip about what might have pushed Suzui so far to the edge she toppled over it entirely. Especially if they spoke about her in the same snide way they seemed to talk about everything else.</p><p>At least they stopped when Kawakami showed up. Akira unshouldered his bag and tilted it forward, letting Morgana crawl out into the desk cubby and wedge himself inside it. She didn’t waste any time getting the day started. He did his best to listen to her talk, staring at her while his eyes glazed over, but everything she said filtered in through one ear and out into the giant chasm of <em>don’t give a fuck</em> that had formed somewhere between it and his brain. If someone had tried to give him a comprehension quiz about anything he’d heard, he wasn’t positive he could get more than a 35%, and that was if he made some very lucky guesses.</p><p>He became distracted for an entirely different reason when his eyes drifted off to the opposite side of the room, where an extra desk appeared to have manifested itself. How had something like that escaped his attention? It was close enough to the door that he had only barely missed glancing it with his hip when he’d walked in earlier. It was occupied too, but by the same guy who’d sat at the back before. ...Weird.</p><p>And then he saw him. Seated in the same row as Ann, right up against the wall, was a boy he’d never seen before. He was tilted in his seat with an elbow to the desk, his cheek resting against the curve of his palm and an expression of infinite boredom settled over his handsome face. When had he come in? Akira hadn’t noticed him at all. Was he new? If he was, Kawakami hadn’t bothered to introduce him or anything, which seemed odd. She’d made him do the whole song and dance despite being several hours late to class on his first day. Plus, nobody else was even looking this guy’s way. Akira craned his neck this way and that, but literally no one was paying any attention to this stranger who was sitting in their class as if he’d always been there, not even Ann. It was beyond him. Slowly, he straightened back up in his seat and chanced a furtive peek over at him a second time.</p><p>He couldn’t believe Kawakami wasn’t giving him shit for the huge headphones covering his ears. The black wire between them was molded into two sharp points that thrust out over the top of his head like a cat's ears. They looked even bigger in the stark shadow painted across the wall. The tips shifted, and Akira dropped his gaze back down to his face. The boy had turned in his seat and was staring right back at him. Despite being separated by four other people, he could see that his irises were the bright, saturated blue of a betta’s scales.</p><p>Akira jerked his head away before the slow smile could finish making its way across the boy’s mouth. Great. He saw him. Maybe now they’d spice up the rumor mill with some more gossip about how he had a creepy staring problem in addition to all the petty crimes that’d been attributed to him.</p><p>He kept his neck bent and his eyes trained on the smooth surface of his desk lest he find himself tempted to stare some more and get caught again. It wasn’t until roll call that he dared to lift his head, curiosity bubbling up in his chest.</p><p>“Abel,” Kawakami called out, and a smooth, boyish voice answered back.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>She moved on without a second thought, continuing down the list as Ann twisted in her seat. Her arm draped across the back of her chair, and she peered over at the new kid with confusion scrunching her features together. Damn, she wasn’t even bothering to hide it. Akira hesitated, but ultimately, he was too intrigued not to look too. He glanced over to see that Abel was already hunched forward again, staring at the front of the room and holding his face as if the slender neck beneath it could scarcely hope to support the weight of his crushing boredom on its own.</p><p>The buzzing of his phone in his pocket actually made him jump. He fished it out and opened the new text from Ann.</p><p>
  <em>Who the heck is that???</em>
</p><p>Her bewilderment was more validating than he could hope to verbalize, especially because the rest of the class still didn’t seem to have observed that there was anything amiss whatsoever. He almost forgot to respond when Kawakami called his name for attendance.</p><p>For the rest of the morning periods, he and Ann sent each other a flurry of texts and took shifts watching the guy as surreptitiously as they possibly could. Ann seemed determined to puzzle out the mystery of his sudden appearance, but Akira had to admit, if only to himself, that his fascination had a less cerebral motive. Mostly it was just that he was <em>really</em> attractive. His rakish hair was the same vivid blue as his eyes, the color of it particularly striking in the sea of dark hair that surrounded him. He was thin and had a sort of sharpness to him that Akira couldn’t quite articulate, and the subtle bend to his spine and the shape of his headphones gave him the appearance of an indolent alley cat.</p><p>He didn’t look at Akira again for the rest of the morning. At lunch time, he stood up, his shadow reaching up to fold itself across the ceiling, and he pushed the door open and disappeared.</p><p>Ann watched him go practically vibrating in her seat. “Seriously, who <em>is</em> that guy?!”</p><p>“I-”</p><p>She grabbed the sleeve of his blazer and yanked him down. “His name is Abel? Just Abel? Is that a family name, or a given name? And did you notice he’s not even carrying a bag?” she whispered, loud enough it almost didn’t qualify as one. “He hasn’t had anything on his desk all day long!”</p><p>“Guess he’s not much of a note taker.” Akira straightened from the awkward angle she’d had him in, and he adjusted his bunched sleeve with a little flick of his fingers. “We should grab something to eat. I’m starving.”</p><p>“Yeah... Okay.” She joined him, though her glossy lips remained pinched into a tiny frown. “I’ll ask around and see if I can find someone who knows anything about him. If he was anything like you, I feel like people would be talking about him. No offense.”</p><p>Akira snorted. “None taken. Come on.”</p><p>Together they ducked out of the classroom and parted ways, Akira to go scrounge for some food and Ann to snoop around like an amateur detective. She’d had a good point about him. The vultures that made up the Shujin student body didn’t seem like the type to leave such a sumptuous piece of meat on the bone. Abel should have been far more interesting to them than he seemed to be.</p><p>Unfortunately, Ann’s sleuthing attempts didn’t turn up much of anything. Or, maybe it was more accurate to say that they turned up exactly what he’d expected them to. By the time classes were set to resume, they met back up at the door with absolutely nothing to show for it. All anyone knew about him was that his name was Abel, and he’d been a student at Shujin as long as any of them could remember.</p><p>“This makes no sense,” she hissed, her fingers curled around the sliding door. “I would recognize him if he’d ever been here before!” Irritated, she thrust the door open and stomped in first, leaving Akira to trail after her. His eyes cut to the side to make sure he bypassed the extra desk, but to his surprise, there no longer was one to avoid. The girl he’d overhead talking about various foods was back in her usual place against the wall, and the extra desk was gone.</p><p>“Where-”</p><p>Before he could get the rest out, the sharp point of Ann’s elbow jabbed into his ribs so hard it temporarily robbed him of his ability to speak. He staggered back a step and looked up to find that the extra desk hadn’t disappeared at all. It had simply changed rows.</p><p>Abel was sitting at the desk directly beside Akira’s empty one, the back of his blue head facing them and his skinny arms folded across the top of it. He and Ann stared at each other, then at Abel, both of them rooted to their respective spots. Could he just...do that? The answer appeared to be yes. Yes, he could. Everyone fell into place around him as naturally as a school of pilot fish, winding down from lunch and preparing for class like he’d been in that row all along.</p><p>Slowly, Akira sank down into his own desk. The way he turned his head felt as inevitable as his next breath. He surrendered to the temptation to look up, and he was thoroughly unsurprised to see Abel gazing right back at him, his hand curled beneath his chin and a smile on his face.</p><p>He made no effort to pretend that he wasn’t staring. Had someone told him that he and Ann were nosing around about him? If that was the case, he was sure Abel’s interest would feel more malicious than it did, but he just seemed curious about Akira in the same way that Akira was about him. He wasn’t used to people smiling at him anymore.</p><p>Akira offered him a slightly awkward one of his own, his hand gravitating to the back of his curly head.</p><p>“Hey! Kurusu!”</p><p>As one, he and Abel broke their mutual scrutiny, and his head snapped up as Abel’s eyes rolled up towards Ushimaru. The man was glowering right at him, a piece of chalk poised dangerously in his fingers.</p><p>“You! Pay attention! Is that how you listen when someone’s talking to you!?”</p><p>The murderous intent was palpable in the air. He stiffened there in his seat, and he flinched at the sight of chalk zooming right in the direction of his face. Akira squeezed his eyes shut seconds before impact, his hands curling into fists against his desk. The impact he’d braced himself for never came. He opened one eye, then the other, and he blinked, his back slamming into his seat. The chalk was frozen mid-air not an inch away from his face. He had to cross his eyes to see it.</p><p>What the fuck.</p><p>Abel moved in the corner of his eye, and they darted over toward him. His arm was extended over the aisle between them, his fingers closed around nothing but empty air. It wasn’t until Akira tilted his head again that he realized. The shadow of his arm was stretched across his desk with the chalk held in its grasp.</p><p>What <em>the fuck.</em></p><p>His stomach dropped between his ankles as he watched Abel’s arm wind back. The smile from before morphed into the wide, hooked grin of a jack-o-lantern, and he swung his arm forward. Hard. The chalk was like a heat-seeking missile. It nailed Ushimaru so hard it knocked him back into the blackboard and bounced off his face, leaving a perfect circle of white dust imprinted in the center of his forehead.</p><p>His hands froze into claws in front of him. His heart pumped pure ice through his veins as he stared back at the man with wide eyes, panic pounding through his skull in time with his pulse. This was it. He might as well just cut the rest of class and make his way straight to the police station. “<em>Kurusu</em>!” he bellowed. He was so fucked. Righting himself once more, Ushimaru shoved himself away from the chalkboard and rubbed at his forehead. “...Nice shot.”  His tone was distinctly begrudging, for all the genuine admiration he detected.</p><p>“... ... ...Thank you, sir,” he choked out.</p><p>Ushimaru spun away and returned to the lecture, clearly intent to carry on like none of that had happened, but he was alone in this endeavor. The entire class swung around in near-perfect sync, each of them watching him with open shock. Beside him, Abel merely winked.</p><p>Ushimaru didn’t seem inclined to throw chalk at Akira for the rest of class. Or at anyone else, for that matter.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
Much as he wanted to talk to Abel after class, Akira wasn’t given the opportunity to do so. Abel was the first person out the door, and he vanished so quickly that Akira had no idea which way he’d even gone. It was just as well. He wasn’t sure what he would have said if he had actually tried to talk to him.</p><p>The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday kept him so busy he forgot all about the strange new kid and his close brush with yet another assault charge. He met that back-alley doctor who dressed like an edgy teenager. He accompanied Ryuji to the airsoft shop and met the owner, who was as good-looking as he was terrifying. He could see why Ryuji was resistant to going in alone. That guy looked like he’d spent at least a decade hanging out in dark alleys beating up bigger, scarier guys just as a hobby.</p><p>Monday morning was upon him before he was ready for it. It wasn’t super clear to him <em>why</em> he wasn’t ready. He’d bought a small arsenal from the man at Untouchable, and he had some kind of illicit medicine that would, allegedly, make their time in the Metaverse at least a little bit less hellish. They were about as prepared as they could be to tackle their mission in earnest: stealing the rotten heart of Kamoshida Suguru. So what more was there to be ready for?</p><p>Maybe it was just that his Sunday was gone in the blink of an eye. What little time he’d been afforded to himself for the weekend was crammed with as many things as he could pack into the day. He didn’t feel especially rested as he trudged his way to school, the sky as insultingly cheerful as it had been the day after Suzui jumped. His stare was a dull thing, following the sparse greenery squeezing itself between the cracks in the cement all along the sidewalk. Some other students were talking about a new video game he only half paid attention to.</p><p>“Good morning. C’mon, hurry up and get to class!”</p><p>A familiar voice hit him, the brick wall to Akira’s mindlessly puttering bumper car. He stopped walking and lifted his head. The sight of him alone was enough to make his fingers clench in his pockets. Kamoshida loomed just ahead with a fake smile plastered over his wide mouth and his tongue dripping the insincere nectar of a pitcher plant.</p><p>Akira lost interest in him immediately. At the opposite side of the gate was Abel, his body bent at a wide angle, both hands shoved into his pockets and his backside resting against the wall. He didn’t pay Akira any mind at all. He seemed to be staring at Kamoshida instead, a blank expression pulled across his pale face. Or at least, he’d thought it was blank. The more he searched, the more it seemed...intent. His eyes had looked almost tropical on Saturday; today they reminded him more of the smooth surface of ice over the Antarctic bottom water.</p><p>He was still staring at him like a jackass when Kamoshida pivoted to face him. That cloying politeness fell away in an instant. He swung his stupid gorilla arms and stood akimbo, glaring down his nose at him. Akira wondered how quickly he’d fast-track that expulsion if he were to tell the man that frowning like that made his already massive chin look big enough it could safely land an airplane.</p><p>“Good morning,” Kamoshida said, more neutrally than he’d anticipated.</p><p>Akira plucked one hand from his pockets and shoved his glasses up higher. “Good morning,” he said back, already moving to duck around him. He was still at Kamoshida’s elbow when the man’s head twisted to level him with a sneer. The enormous desire to tell him to get his fucking potato nose out of his face grew exponentially with every second he spent standing still.</p><p>“...That admirable behavior won’t do you any good once you’re expelled.”</p><p>Prick. Akira met his eyes and narrowed them in open defiance. He looked away without deigning the man with another response, and he started up the drab grey steps to the equally drab school front. A presence at his shoulder startled the hell out of him.</p><p>“I don’t think he likes you very much,” Abel commented. He grinned for him and fell into place right beside him as easily as if they’d made the whole trek to school together. It was strange to have such willing company that wasn’t Ryuji.</p><p>“Yeah,” he agreed, adjusting his glasses again and pushing his hand back into his pocket. “He’s not a big fan.”</p><p>Abel laughed, the sound of it warm and shockingly sweet. “No? You can’t be all that bad, then, if a douchebag like that doesn’t like you. I figured the rumors were full of shit.” The sense of camaraderie made his heart swell to the point it was embarrassing. Akira swallowed and nodded for him, his arm twisting to grasp the strap of his bag. He could feel Morgana squirming around in it.</p><p>“Yeah. They usually are.”</p><p>“True enough.” He could see Abel move to catch a yawn from the corner of his eye, but he was busy staring down at the ground. Abel’s shadow fell across the stairs before him like a red carpet of darkness so deep, it was hard to even make out the texture of concrete. Blinking, Akira turned to look at his own for comparison, and he stopped short.</p><p>Abel ascended the rest of the way without him and let himself into Shujin, disappearing behind the closing door.</p><p>Sweat broke out across his lower back.</p><p>His own shadow fell to the left of him.</p><p>Akira stared. And stared. He stood frozen a decent ways from the door, ignoring the irritated whispers of students who had to go around his immobile body. He wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t just his shadow that was wrong. <em>Everyone</em> else’s shadow fell to the left, angled up ever so slightly. If their shadows were hands pointing to 10 o’clock, Abel’s was pointing at midnight.</p><p>The chiming of the bell finally spurred him to get the hell out of everybody’s way. He rushed past the doors and took the stairs, his mind racing and his heartbeat erratic in his ears.</p><p>He’d have to keep a closer eye on his shadow today.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
Or not.</p><p>Abel must have read his mind, or realized that Akira noticed. Or he’d been hallucinating in the first place. Homeroom period was exactly the same as it always was, just with an extra name on the roster. Abel slouched over his desk and yawned all throughout attendance, and his shadow behaved as any normal one could be expected to. It pointed the same way everyone else’s did and moved only when Abel did.</p><p>But he’d been so <em>sure</em>.</p><p>Akira was positive he wasn’t misremembering. Abel’s shadow was cast so perfectly ahead of him that he’d seen the insides of the cat-ear headphones framing either side of his head, as if the sun had been positioned directly behind him.</p><p>With his neck bent, he watched it all throughout class, his heart leaping every time Abel so much as shifted on his seat. But nothing happened. It didn’t do a dance, or stretch out unusually far. It wasn’t darker than all the ones around it. It was just...an ordinary shadow.</p><p>Akira found himself the tiniest bit disappointed.</p><p>“...Well, that wraps up the homeroom period.”</p><p>Abruptly, Abel’s seat slid backward across the wood floor, and he climbed to his feet and walked out the door. No one looked at him twice. Kawakami didn’t even blink, instead fixing <em>him</em> with a mild frown, like he’d been the one to peace right the hell out of class. “Kurusu. A word with you, please?”</p><p>Wonderful. What the hell had he done now? Oh god. Had Ushimaru told her about the chalk stunt? Was he going to be expelled even if he did successfully change Kamoshida’s heart? Fuck. Abel vanished from his mind yet again, and he trudged after Kawakami while charged whispers bit at the back of his neck and his throat closed up.</p><p>She was taking him to the faculty office, which did not strike him as a good sign. He could make out the aggressively yellow placard hanging over the door as soon as they rounded the corner. Whoever had been in charge of decor was really on the nose, picking the same color as a wet floor sign. Maybe he really was about to be expelled. Both hands tensed inside his pockets, and he looked away from the door to see Abel again, standing right across from it. His heart skipped. Akira slowed, his eyes trained on Abel, who appeared to be watching the door to the faculty office. What...was he doing? If he was really cutting class, why would he do it right outside the one place all the teachers congregated?</p><p>Kawakami turned toward him and began to speak like Abel wasn’t even there. “There’s something I’d like to ask you. It won’t take long.”</p><p>That sounded slightly less prison-bound than what he’d been imagining, but he’d learned well that hope tended to cloak daggers of disappointment. He nodded for her and pushed at the bridge of his glasses. Despite himself, his eyes darted downward to see her smaller shadow stretched out behind her, right alongside his own. He’d seriously lost his mind. Even with the sword point of expulsion dangling right over his head, he was more interested in watching its shadow sway across the floor.</p><p>Akira glanced over at Abel tilted back against the wall. He paid them every bit as much attention as Kawakami had paid to him, not moving at all until the door behind her slid open. To his utter lack of surprise, Kamoshida strode out of the office, swinging his arms about as much as he liked to swing his dick. Of course it was Kamoshida. Who else could it possibly have been? He was only a little more surprised to see that red-headed first year from the train following behind him, as well as some other guy he didn’t know and didn’t care to. They all stopped to face the three of them down. Akira held his breath, waiting for someone to pull out a switchblade and start snapping.</p><p>No one did. Kamoshida’s face washed over in an obnoxious grin, and he regarded Kawakami with the same faux politeness as this morning. How did no one else recognize that he was faker than an AJPW wrestler? “I see you’re already getting on top of the problem I’d mentioned this morning, Ms. Kawakami! I appreciate the support.”</p><p>The little red-head made the mistake of thanking him again. Kamoshida wasted no time pouncing on the opportunity to talk yet more shit about him to an unwitting stranger while everyone not involved in their petty slapfight was just left to stand around awkwardly. It annoyed him even more than it usually did. Did he have no shame at all?</p><p>“I recommend you steer clear of the likes of him if you have any consideration for your future. Remember the discussion we just had? There are a number of students in this school you shouldn’t get involved with...” Kamoshida gestured toward him with a snide cut of his head. “This one’s at the top of the list.”</p><p>A strange motion off to the side caught his eye. Akira glanced over to see Abel rolling his eyes and clenching his fist, his arm pumping back and forth in a theatric jerking motion. It was so unexpected that a startled laugh burst out of him, and he had to rush to cover it with a fake fit of coughing.</p><p>Kawakami finally interrupted to ask for them to get the hell out of the way, but she’d let his showboating go on long enough Akira didn’t feel particularly grateful for her efforts.</p><p>“Oh, pardon me.” Everything he said was so fucking grating and insufferable. “We should be going too -- don’t want to get in the way of guiding this <em>delinquent</em> and all.”</p><p>What felt like a goddamned eternity later, Kamoshida started to walk away, but as he passed by Abel, the lights overhead flickered. They sputtered out with the droning buzz of a dying bulb before they kicked back on again three seconds later. When Akira whipped around, Abel’s shadow was on the opposite wall, stretched from floor to ceiling and curved at an unnatural angle.</p><p>It was looming over Kamoshida’s.</p><p>Akira watched, his eyes so wide they strained, frozen in place as the dark shape of Abel lifted its leg and jammed it right into the back of Kamoshida’s calf. Or, rather, the shadow of his calf. The man dropped like a fucking stone, crumpling to one knee with a breathless wheeze of pain. Abel hadn’t even moved that time. His hands remained thrust into his back pockets, even when the shadow wound its arm back and formed a fist.</p><p>It slammed into the back of Kamoshida’s skull so hard his real self smashed face-down onto the ground and bounced off.</p><p>“M- Mr. Kamoshida?!”</p><p>The first-year rushed over to his side to help him, but Kamoshida was already scrambling to his feet again and whirling on them, open rage stamped on his bloodied face. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped in the same split second. Akira had never seen his dark eyes look so huge before.</p><p>“Hey, that looked like it hurt.” Abel’s voice drew his attention as effortlessly as a siren’s call. Akira watched as he stepped forward, his face a blank mask of meticulously carved ice. “Maybe next time you should watch where you’re going.”</p><p>Kamoshida’s entire face turned white. He took one step back, and another, and he mumbled a rushed, “Excuse me,” to Yoshizawa before he hurried down the stairs as fast as his long legs could carry him.</p><p>Abel strode away from him and lifted his arms, folding them behind his head. As he hit the corner, he tilted his head back and flashed Akira a second wink. “See you in class, delinquent.”</p><p>The lights overhead flickered again.</p><p>His eyes were <em>blazing</em> red.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
In the following days, it became clear that Monday was only a precursor: the way things were going, it was on track to become Kamoshida’s own personal hell week. It was as if the universe had finally become cognizant of the injustice festering within the walls of Shujin, and it had come to lance it.</p><p>On Tuesday, the motor of Kamoshida’s car spontaneously exploded in the parking lot, setting the whole body on fire while managing to leave both vehicles on either side of it in pristine condition. On Wednesday afternoon, a flock of tiny birds burst in through the doors and caused mayhem in the hallways. Somehow, the only person who sustained any damage at all was Kamoshida; he stormed out of the building with hundreds of tiny scratch marks across his face and arms and his shirt hanging off him in limp white tatters.</p><p>Thursday was especially eventful. It was the first time Akira had ever seen Abel actually participate in any class...sort of. As soon as regular classes were over, he ducked out of the room yet again, and this time, Akira followed him. As it happened, he looked really cute in the Shujin tracksuit. He infiltrated the volleyball team as easily as he seemed to do anything else, standing at the corner of the court with his red pants pushed all the way up to his bony knees and the windbreaker sleeves rolled up above his elbows.</p><p>By now, Akira had learned to watch his shadow rather than him. It was painted across the wall of the gym, as still as he was until someone on his side of the net passed the ball in his direction. His eyes followed each shadow like a demented puppet show, the ball bouncing from one set of arms, to another, and then suspended in midair.</p><p>Abel’s shadow seemed to grow, reaching up toward the ceiling and slapping an open palm to the upper side of the ball. It went hurtling back down to the earth like a meteor and crash landed right into Kamoshida’s face with the same impact as one too. It took two students on either side of him to drag his limp form out of the gym.</p><p>It was insanely difficult to reconcile this wrathful monster with the same kid who sat beside him in class. When Kamoshida’s motor exploded, Abel was at his desk the whole time, doodling on a piece of printer paper. Upon covering every inch of it in drawings, he’d folded it up into an origami star and flicked it over onto Akira’s open textbook. One of the drawings was a cute chibi rendition of Akira's face. On Wednesday, he spent the entire day reading a strange English book with a name Akira couldn’t pronounce, but the cover looked so innocent it struck him as sort of funny. A bright blue sky covered the expanse above a single tree in the middle of an empty wheat field.</p><p>He seemed so...harmless. Despite the number of times Akira had actively witnessed him be the exact opposite of harmless. It was clear he was capable of breathtaking cruelty, but he reserved it exclusively for shitbags like Kamoshida -- though, that wasn’t to say pettier crimes went completely unaddressed. He’d once watched Abel look up at just the right time to see one of the more pernicious gossips moving to sit down. The shadow of his hand had curled right up under the top of her seat, and he yanked it clean out from underneath her. It was juvenile of him, but Akira had to admit a private stab of satisfaction that she and the state of her tailbone were the subject of dozens of rumors of their own after that spectacular fall on her ass.</p><p>Abel was like an avenging angel, come to turn Shujin over on its head for its piss-poor treatment of him and other innocents like Suzui and Mishima. Or so he assumed. It was hard to imagine any other reason someone so supernatural would be tolerating high school and going out of their way to be nice to him.</p><p>By the time Friday rolled around, Akira found himself both terrified and intrigued to see what he had in store for Kamoshida that day. He also didn’t have to wait very long. Abel was already seated when he slid into his own chair, and he had his face propped in one hand while the other prodded at a bizarre-looking doll splayed out across the surface of his desk. What the hell was that? It had a mop of messy black hair with thick, exaggerated angry eyebrows, and its clothes looked like…</p><p>He knew exactly what it was when Abel produced a narrow sewing pin that caught the fluorescent lighting from above. He held it aloft and thrust it neatly into the doll’s middle. If it actually had the desired effect, Akira hadn’t the faintest idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that it didn’t. Abel drew it right back out and frowned, a mild little twist of his lips, before he poked it into one of the doll’s fingerless hands.</p><p>Homeroom period started, but, as always, Abel ignored Kawakami and focused on the hapless doppelganger of his hated nemesis. Eventually he seemed to get bored of the pin and summoned a lighter instead. With gentle flicks of his fingertips, he knocked its tiny shoes off and hefted it up into the air, his thumb and forefinger curled around the back of its shirt and his other hand holding the lighter up to its bare feet.</p><p>He gave it a dramatic twirl and flicked it on.</p><p>“Kurusu Akira?”</p><p>He yanked his head away by force and blurted out a jumbled response that made Kawakami’s face pinch. A few students snickered. Smooth. As he dropped his head again, he could see Abel looking over at him, his mouth curled in amusement. He looked back down at the Kamoshida doll and tossed it back onto his desk. The way he stared at it carried an air of mild intellectual interest, like a little kid who had yet to understand why it was fucked up to turn a magnifying glass onto an ant.</p><p>Abel’s lip curled. Lifting the pin again, he thrust his pinkie out and jammed it down into the doll’s ass, then tossed it onto the floor behind him with a dismissive sweep of his hand. This time, he pulled out a different doll, with equally curly hair.</p><p>Akira’s stomach disappeared into nothing the instant he understood who it was. Holy shit. Why did he have that?! Had he just been pretending to be nice all week? Had he been secretly biding his time to sweeten the torture? Abel caught his eye and smiled at him as he plucked doll-Akira’s tiny school loafers off. Fear seized him in its frozen iron grip, and he watched helplessly while Abel closed two fingers around the quill of a small white feather. Wait- What?</p><p>The first drag of the tip of it against the doll’s foot made him seize up so hard, his leg flew up and smashed into the bottom of Ann’s seat. She almost jumped right out of it and whipped around to glare at him, mouthing, “<em>What the hell</em>!?” so colorfully he could hear her actual voice reverberating in his head.</p><p>Abel laughed hard enough it ended in a snort. To Akira’s endless dismay, he did not seem persuaded to stop. Instead, he caressed his doll-self again, teasing at its feet and then its face. It was the most surreal feeling he’d ever experienced to have the ghost of a feather tickling his cheeks and the soles of his feet.</p><p>Only when he was liable to explode did Abel finally take pity on him. He discarded the feather and plopped doll-Akira down in front of him, pressing his thumbs and forefingers around its shoulders and squeezing gently. It felt...it felt really good. The phantom sensation still made him jump like a fucking moron, but he soon melted beneath the vicarious attention, leaning forward and clenching his hands tightly. Abel seemed to have some divine knowledge of exactly where he was sore from the combination of training with Ryuji and their forays into the Metaverse. He poked and prodded at the doll’s back, soothing deep aches with the touch of an expert.</p><p>This went on for several minutes, but then Abel shifted his hands and crooked two of his fingers. The feeling of Abel’s fingernails coursing through his hair sent lightning bolts of pleasure zipping down his spine. Abel obviously knew it, too, since he shifted the angle of his hand and slid a fingertip right up the doll’s Shujin blazer, tracing the length of its back.</p><p>Akira maintained a stubborn grip over his own mouth the whole time Abel toyed with him, desperate to keep the mortifying noises threatening to burst out of him at bay. It wasn’t until lunch time that the exquisite torture finally stopped. Abel tugged the small black blazer straight, spun the doll around, and lifted it by the middle to bring it up to his face. Though Akira could so clearly see it coming, the sensation of warm lips against his cheek still took him by surprise.</p><p>Once again, Abel smiled for him before he stood up and slipped the doll into the pocket of his own Shujin blazer. For the first time, the year pin on his lapel caught his eye. It was emblazoned with a white zero.</p><p>He stretched, long and languid, bringing to mind yet more comparisons to slinky alley cats. But as Abel looked up at the clock above the blackboard, his arms fell to his sides, and a smooth, impassive look settled across his face. “Ah.” His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits where ice chips glistened from the concentric rings of his irises.</p><p>As he swung around, that cold expression disappeared in favor of a crooked grin. “It’s been fun, Kurusu Akira. Good luck with the whole...you know,” he murmured, waving an arm around the whole of the classroom and rolling his eyes. “Kids these days, right? Try not to let ‘em get you down. Take care of yourself, delinquent.”</p><p>He offered Akira one final salute with two fingers and strode out of the room, doll-Akira still poking out of his pocket and its tiny arms draped over the hem. He was careful to step on the Kamoshida doll on his way out the door.</p><p>...What was that all about? That sounded like he was leaving. For good. Was he done? Just like that? Had he decided Kamoshida had suffered enough? But it seemed so...anticlimactic.</p><p>Akira wasn’t ready for him to go.</p><p>He sat in his seat, his fingers curled and his teeth digging at the inside of his cheek. Should he go after him? It didn’t feel right to beg him to stay. Shujin was a cesspit on a good day, and Abel surely had better things to do than play vigilante on behalf of someone like him. Still, the thought of losing this one unexpected ally smarted a lot more than he’d suspected it would. Abel was like Suzui. They’d both been nice to him for no reason at all, when everyone else was too busy whispering about how much they wished he’d just disappear to remember that he was still a fucking person.</p><p>Before he was aware of it, Akira was on his feet and halfway out the door. It didn’t occur to him that he was following in Abel’s exact steps until the Kamoshida doll was already underfoot.</p><p>Maybe it wasn’t his place to ask him to stay, but he owed Abel his thanks for making his time here that much more tolerable. Assuming, of course, that he could figure out where Abel had gone. He was enormously good at vanishing without a trace.</p><p>The scream echoing from the stairway was a bit of a tipoff, however. Akira’s spine went rigid as he stood there like a jackass. No one else was running towards the third floor, or behaving as if they’d heard it all. The students milling around the hall were completely oblivious, despite the second scream that was cut off by the sound of something heavy crashing into a wall. He hesitated for only a second longer and tore up the stairs, the blood rushing in his ears with the force of the Amazon river.</p><p>He burst from the landing and skidded across the floor. There on the ground, huddled on his hands and knees, was Kamoshida. His long face was molded into a rictus of pure, animal <em>terror</em>. Above and before and beside him, prowling a lazy circuit around his battered form, was Abel, sneering down his nose at him. “You really thought you were gonna get rid of me that easily, didn’t you? Don’t flatter yourself. Take a day trip all you want. Duck out of here early. Try flying across the fucking globe for all I give a shit. There’s not a single corner of this goddamned earth where you’ll be safe from <em>me</em>.”</p><p>Every light in the ceiling shut off at once, plunging the hallway into darkness. It was a short-lived foray into the void; when they flickered back on, the world was thrown into harsh, primary reds and stark blacks, Abel’s shadow larger than life on the wall behind them. Akira shrank backwards and fought for a thin slice of breath. “A- Abel?”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>Abel turned on him, and his heart backflipped to see the sizzling red of his iris burning in the semi-darkness. At the sight of Akira, his shoulders went slack and bent backwards. “Oh. Hey there, cute stuff. Two seconds, okay? I’ll be done in a minute, and then we can talk about how you’re so damn observant all the time.”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>Ignoring him, Abel leapt into the air and swung one leg forward. His shadow connected with Kamoshida’s own and threw him into the wall hard enough he could hear the buckle of his ribs. Akira flinched and started forward. “Abel, what are you doing?!”</p><p>He stopped immediately, swiveling to stare at him with something like disbelief flirting with his face. “You’re not serious, right? What does it look like I’m doing? I’m about to improve your school year exponentially. Obviously,” he added, a smirk screwing itself into place at the corners of his mouth. He opened his mouth again, but the guttural sound of a sob interrupted him, and Kamoshida grasped at the top of Abel’s shoe.</p><p>“Please… What do you want?! Is it money? You can have it all, just leave-”</p><p>“<em>Money</em>?” A razor sharp laugh cut through the air as Abel kicked his hand away. “Are you kidding me? You really think I’m as cheap as you are, eh? Besides, shouldn’t you be using that fat coach salary to buy yourself a new Shaggin’ Wagon?” His foot connected with his face -- his real face, this time -- and Kamoshida sprawled out on the ground, tears still streaming down his face. Akira’s stomach twisted into nothing.</p><p>“Abel--”</p><p>“God, but you’re fucking pathetic,” he snapped, cutting Akira off and curling his lip in dripping disdain. “Why do I get the feeling that you’ve been as unmoved by all the students who’ve cried at your feet as I am by you? Get up. You could at least face your death with the same amount of dignity she did.”</p><p>Utterly independent of Abel, his shadow curled its fingers into claws, the long cord of his headphones dangling from between them as it twisted and shaped into the form of a noose that dangled over Kamoshida’s bushy head. It dropped around his neck, and Akira watched in horror as the shadow <em>tugged</em>.</p><p>Kamoshida’s body went sailing into the air, his hands scrabbling at his naked throat where deep indentations of nothing cut into his skin. All the while, Abel watched with his hands pushed into his pockets. “You’ve been on borrowed time since Friday, I’m afraid. Time’s up, Suguru.”</p><p>Sweat poured down Akira’s face and gathered at the small of his back, his eyes following every desperate flail of Kamoshida’s legs. “Don’t,” he whispered, snatching up Abel’s arm and yanking his hand clean out of his pocket. “Please, don’t kill him!” He yelled it this time, collapsing to his knees and squeezing tighter at his thin fingers. “Abel, don’t. Don’t do this. Please.”</p><p>Abel was staring at him. His eyes were wide and so deeply, impossibly red. For several seconds, his expression was unreadable. Then it contorted, and he sighed and lifted a hand to snap his fingers. Kamoshida went totally motionless, one of his legs still caught in the air and his face freezing.</p><p>“Alright, I’ll bite.” Shaking him free, Abel whipped around and folded his arms, cocking his head down at him. “Why don’t you want me to kill him? You know he hates your guts, right?”</p><p>Akira scrambled back up to his feet and swallowed, looking from Abel back to Kamoshida. “It’s not like I don’t think he deserves it, but- but death isn’t the answer.” He could tell that was the wrong thing to say when Abel’s face collapsed into a look of slightly bored irritation.</p><p>“I might have guessed that you’re kind of a square.”</p><p>“Wh- that’s not it,” Akira snapped, embarrassed by how much that annoyed him. He shook his head sharply and stepped closer to him, as beseeching as he’d ever been. “If he dies, you’re just making him into a martyr. Everyone will just feel <em>sorry</em> for him, and they’ll never have to confront the shitty way he’s treated people all this time. They’ll just keep turning a blind eye to all the awful things he’s done. And death is too...quick. It’s too good for him.”</p><p>That seemed like a far more interesting response to him. Abel raised both his eyebrows, and he offered Akira a crooked smile. “Oh yeah? And what’s the alternative you’re proposing?”</p><p>His nerves were alive inside him, squirming with the red hot footsteps of a line of fire ants. “Make him live with the guilt of what he’s done. For the rest of his life. Maybe he does deserve to die, but I think it’s a lot worse in the long run if he has to wake up every day knowing he can never do anything to atone for the hurt and damage he’s caused.”</p><p>Abel blinked several times. His nose wrinkled too, and he propped one hand on his hip. “What, you’re just going to bank on hoping he becomes a better man overnight? Come on, Akira. You’re smarter than that.”</p><p>“No. Not hoping. I’m going to make him.” He steeled himself and stood straighter, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “...We’re going to steal his heart.”</p><p>And there it was. Intrigue blossomed across Abel’s face, a night blooming rose with a mouth full of thorns. He laughed and tossed his blue hair, watching Akira with open curiosity in his face. “Is that right?”</p><p>“Yes. And it’s not just me. Suzui was Ann’s best friend. She deserves to confront him on her behalf, and on Suzui’s. If we do this, we can make him confess everything he’s done. He’ll feel genuine remorse and there’ll be nothing he can do about it.”</p><p>Abel went silent at that, still staring at Akira with his brilliant red eyes. They reminded him of rubies, sharply cut and gleaming with the same inorganic lack of warmth. “Oh, alright,” he finally said, sighing deeply and folding his arms. “You talked me into it.”</p><p>Stupidly, Akira blinked at him. “I did?”</p><p>“What can I say? You appealed to the romantic in me.” Abel waved vaguely and turned away from him, sauntering back towards Kamoshida’s inert form still suspended in mid-air. “What a waste. That was going to be such a baller execution too. Oh well.”</p><p>“So, er...can you...fix him?”</p><p>Abel scoffed and whirled back around, stalking right up to him. “Whoa, hey. Slow your roll, kojak. It’s not that simple.”</p><p>He got so close Akira had to flatten back against the wall to keep their noses from touching. “It’s not?” he asked, trying not to make it obvious he didn’t know what ‘kojak’ meant.</p><p>“That’s right.” Abel tipped backwards, rocking onto the balls of his feet and regarding him with a wicked smile. “I’m here to take her rapist’s life because that’s the stipulation of the contract I made with Shiho. I can’t just renege on a contract. What kind of guy would that make me?”</p><p>He could feel his own cheeks drain of color, and he stared back at Abel with abject confusion written all over his face. "Huh?" he blurted. "A...contract?" With <em>Suzui</em>? What did that mean? He made it sound like he was some sort of hitman, or a...</p><p>“Uhm, yeah? Why did you think I was here?” Abel paused before he cracked a little giggle, and he covered his mouth with one hand. “Oh. Did you think I was here for you? I’ll be honest, I can totally understand how I gave you that impression. I’m sorry to disappoint. Genuinely. But to tell you the truth, I just happened to think you were cute.” Lightly, he shrugged, wandering back towards Kamoshida and tilting his head back. “I only joined your class because Shiho asked me to keep an eye on Ann. She’s pretty remarkable, you know? Shiho.”</p><p>As he glanced back at him over her shoulder, his eyes narrowed into catty almond slices. “You still have no idea what I am, do you?”</p><p>Akira shook his head.</p><p>“Have you heard of the notion that a mortal with a particularly strong sense of will can summon a spirit? Well, it’s true. Most people, at their lowest points, can still only call to low-level apparitions. But a uniquely strong desire can pull something much bigger right on through the veil.” Abel spun on his heel and spread a pale hand across his sternum. “Shiho didn’t want to <em>die</em>, she wanted the pain to stop. And she wanted it to stop so badly that when she called out, I’m the one who answered.”</p><p>The blood was rushing so loud Akira could barely hear him. He felt faint as he stared back at him, his palms slick and his heart trying to squeeze itself out from between his ribs. “So...what, are you the Devil?”</p><p>Abel laughed, loud and warm and deliciously wicked, and he thrust a contemptuous hand over his shoulder. “Please. Kamoshida wishes I was only the Devil.” Cheerfully, he threw up his arms and offered up his empty palms. “So. You’re going to steal Kamoshida’s black lump of a heart, are you? Are you confident enough to bet your soul on that?”</p><p>“Wh-”</p><p>Bending his wrist, Abel quirked a fingertip and bid for him to come closer. “You don’t have a choice, unfortunately. Like I said, I can’t just decide not to fulfill my end of a contract. However, if you want to make a contract with me that you’ll successfully change Kamoshida’s heart, then that would be an acceptable substitute.”</p><p>Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. The bridge of his nose was so sweaty his glasses were sliding down it and threatening to fall off entirely. Did he have a choice? If he didn’t want Abel to murder Kamoshida right here in the hallway, then Abel’s offer might well be the only way out of it. Again, he swallowed, his throat a veritable subway tunnel of suffocating knots, and he dipped his head once. “Okay.”</p><p>The grin that unfurled across his mouth was the spread of a bat’s wings: sharp, melodramatic, and possibly carrying rabies. Abel bent his arm and curled a pinkie, thrusting it in his direction. From either side of him his shadow billowed out like a cape of pure darkness. The shape of his headphones on the wall reminded him of a demon’s horns. “Wonderful. Let’s shake on it, then.”</p><p>Akira hooked his pinkie with Abel’s own and shook. Everywhere his skin touched <em> burned</em>. A ribbon of black snaked from Abel’s skin and slithered around his own, looping dozens and dozens of times around their joined fingers. It curled up into the air and tied itself into a bow that dissolved into smoke right before his eyes.</p><p>“Done and done,” Abel purred, yanking him forward with his superior strength and bumping the tips of their noses together. “I look forward to working with you. I’ll give you until you would have been expelled to steal his heart. If you haven’t managed to fundamentally change who he is as a person by then, I’ll have no choice but to eat your soul.”</p><p>Their pinkies still locked together, he tilted his head and surged forward, kissing Akira so hard his toes curled in his shoes.</p><p>“Sealed with a kiss for good measure. Good luck, Akira. I’m rooting for you.”</p><p>Only when their hands parted did he flick an arm. Kamoshida crashed to the ground, wheezing for breath, and time seemed to return to its normal flow. Abel watched impassively as Kamoshida coughed and hacked, clutching at his throat. “I still think you should have let me kill him, but...if you can pull this off, you’ll make a believer out of me.”</p><p>He walked away with his hands folded behind his head, humming some song he was unfamiliar with. As Akira watched him go, cold, mortal fear swam up inside his gut.</p><p>He couldn’t help but wonder if it was a mistake to save Kamoshida’s life.</p><p>Now it wasn’t just expulsion on the line. Apparently, it was his soul.</p><p>What the fuck had he done?<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The rest of the staff passed Kamoshida’s aborted execution off as an asthma attack. He went home early and was absent on Saturday, but he was back at Shujin by the next Monday. Not that it seemed to matter overly much -- he avoided Akira like he carried a never-before-seen strain of the plague, to say nothing of how quickly he fled at the mere suggestion that Abel might be nearby.</p><p>A small part of him wondered why Kamoshida never told anyone about what was happening. Why he never tried to reach out to anyone who looked up at him as if he was still standing tall on his pedestal, even just to commiserate. But the rest of Akira knew exactly why he didn’t. It was for the same reason he hadn’t told any of his friends about the ill-advised bargain he’d made with Abel.</p><p>Who in their right fucking mind would ever believe them?</p><p>As far as anyone else at Shujin was concerned, Abel was just an ordinary student who spent every period doing anything other than schoolwork. So, like most of them. He liked to draw and fold up adorable notes to ask Akira what music he liked and what his favorite color was, though mostly he slept right through class with an open manga resting over his face. The only abnormal thing about him was how relentlessly he flirted with the weird, stab happy thug all their other classmates refused to speak to. No reasonable person would ever buy that he held both Akira’s and Kamoshida’s lives in the palms of his smooth hands.</p><p>It felt strange to have that single point of commonality with Kamoshida. Their fates were now inextricably linked; either both of them would survive this, or neither of them would, and it was entirely Akira’s fault. How like him, to put his very existence on the line for someone who, once again, proved to be unworthy of it. Of course he couldn’t tell his friends.</p><p>But it was likely becoming obvious with each passing day that something was wrong. The only time he didn’t dwell in a fog of ever-building panic was in the Metaverse, when Joker’s mask was affixed to his face. When he was too busy leapfrogging from enemy shoulders and ripping off masks and blazing a path through the metaphysical castle to worry about what it would feel like to have his soul devoured by thornlike teeth.</p><p>On those days, it wasn’t until he and Morgana were safely back at Leblanc that he lay in bed and let the terror steadily consume him. Every day they failed to reach Kamoshida’s treasure was another one bringing him closer to his encroaching doom. Even after they did reach it, and after they left Ryuji’s strongly worded calling card littered through the halls of the school, and after they confronted the grotesque hellbeast that Kamoshida’s shadow became and he clutched the last remaining relic of his crumbled Palace between his shaking, sweat-slick hands, Akira still wasn’t convinced that a knockoff Olympic medal would be enough to save him.</p><p>When he sold it to the clerk at Untouchable, he got 30,000 yen for it. The man looked deeply uncomfortable as Akira stood there with the money in his hands, staring down at it and clenching his jaw and blinking a little too quickly.</p><p>Apparently his soul was worth less than the cost of a PlayStation 4. He thanked the man politely and walked out with the money and a sketchy-looking bag he was too numb not to accept.</p><p>Kamoshida stopped coming to school after that. At first, he’d suspected Abel had done something to him, but he seemed as mystified by his absence as Akira was. Plus, keeping up his end of a contract was the only thing he’d ever seen Abel take with deathly seriousness. He’d given Akira until his expulsion to make good on his promise. For whatever reason, his trust that Abel would honor that was absolute.</p><p>Indeed, Abel showed up to class every day, regardless of Kamoshida’s absence, drawing him more dorky doodles and passing him flirty notes like he wasn’t dangling Akira over his open mouth.</p><p>And then it was Monday. Akira stood away from the other two in the auditorium, his thighs tense and his knuckles bleeding white inside the pockets of his uniform slacks. This was it. Today was the day.</p><p>“What do you think this assembly’s all about?”</p><p>He jerked to attention, turning his head as Abel yawned into the crook of his elbow and stopped right beside him. For the first time he’d ever seen, his headphones were down around his neck, and his blue hair was adorably sleep-mussed. “Eugh, I’m tired. You’re lucky you’re so cute, you know. I so did not become a nigh-omnipotent godking just so I could go back to high school,” he complained, squinting over at Akira with one eye. “If you’d just let me kill Coach Badtouch the first time, I’d already be out of here by now.”</p><p>“Oh.” Right. That made sense. Of course he wasn’t going to stick around after that. Akira twisted a lock of hair between his fingers and looked away from him. “Sorry about that.”</p><p>“Aww, it’s okay. I forgive you.” A pause, and Abel threw him a sly look, twisting on his legs to face him. “Speaking of which, aren’t you and your blond wonder over there supposed to be expelled today?”</p><p>The contents of his stomach turned somehow more sour than they already were. Mutely, he nodded, and Abel tittered at him. “What! Don’t look so green about it! Look, I promise you, I’ll do it in as few bites as I possibly can.” At that, something absolutely <em>wicked</em> flashed across his pale face, and his lips stretched into a wide, lascivious smirk. “I’d try to do it in one bite, but I’m not sure I can fit the whole thing in my mouth all at once.”</p><p>Akira choked on his own tongue. He coughed violently, his face burning so hot his skin was sure to start peeling off in rolls. Beside him, Abel snickered to himself behind his hands and blinked over the tips of his fingers with faux innocence. His eyes were big and angelic and blue again.</p><p>He was saved from having to respond by Principal Kobayakawa approaching the microphone. It didn’t strike him as especially surprising that the assembly was about Shiho’s attempted suicide after all. It was all a bunch of useless platitudes from someone who so clearly couldn’t have given a genuine shit about the bad behavior of his own staff if someone held a gun to his shiny head, but it was good to know that Shiho had a chance of recovery.</p><p>Distantly, he heard the sound of the doors opening. He didn’t look away until Abel did first, his blue eyebrows lifting.</p><p>“Mr. Kamoshida, what’s the-”</p><p>It was the first time he’d seen the man in days. Kamoshida stood in the doorway, his arms slumped and his shoulders hunched. Abel’s eyes narrowed before he glanced back at Akira and quirked an eyebrow.</p><p>Kamoshida stepped forward into the light, and an uncharacteristically somber expression settled across his entire face. “I...have been reborn.”</p><p>Abel’s eyes popped open and blinked several times. “No <em>fucking</em> way.”</p><p>Both of them watched, Akira’s heart clenched and Abel’s mouth slightly open as Kamoshida took the stage. He confessed everything. <em>Everything</em>. He got down to his knees, and every single abuse, every cruelty, every violation he’d ever inflicted on his students poured out of his mouth, all while Kobayakawa tried desperately to force him off the stage and out of the range of the dozens and dozens of cell phones capturing every single moment of his downfall.</p><p>They did it.</p><p>They fucking did it.</p><p>The whole time, Abel took it all in, his eyes darting back and forth and his teeth closed around his thumbnail. He looked more riveted than Akira had ever seen him. He was especially gleeful when Kamoshida broke down in tears and pleaded for someone to call the police.</p><p>Slowly, Abel reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. One of their own calling cards. He must have taken one of them off the wall and kept it. He pried it open, and Akira watched his eyes scan the cobbled text. At the end, an impish smile curled the corners of his lips. “The Phantom Thieves of Hearts, huh?”</p><p>He caught Akira’s eyes and grinned wider, then flashed him a sultry wink. “Mission accomplished,” he purred. “Shame about your soul. I was really looking forward to it. Yours looks like it’d be nice and zesty.” Opening his mouth, he licked at his teeth as Akira flushed, then laughed at him and thrust his hand into his hair to ruffle it fondly. “Fuck me. I can’t believe that actually worked. What the hell did you do?”</p><p>He shoved his glasses up higher and cleared his throat, reaching up and fixing his hair. “I told you. We stole his heart.”</p><p>“So you did!”</p><p>They stayed while the carnage unfolded, teachers yelling at everyone to get back to class and Kamoshida wailing in the middle of the stage. Abel sighed and propped his elbow over on Akira’s shoulder. “I won’t miss this place, but I sure will miss you. You gonna go tell Shiho the good news after school?”</p><p>He frowned softly. “She’s still in a coma.”</p><p>Abel scoffed, and he snapped his fingers once. “Now she isn’t. I’d go tell her myself, but I have a feeling she’d appreciate hearing it from Ann more than me. I believe that just leaves one more contract to complete.” He dropped his arm and snagged Akira’s pinkie with his own, the black ribbon from before manifesting on their skin and then melting away. “You and your soul can rest easy. Take care of yourself, delinquent.”</p><p>He slid away from him and moved to walk away, but before he could stop himself, Akira reached out and grasped his wrist. It felt thinner in his grip than he expected it to. “Wait.”</p><p>Abel did, blinking and glancing back at him over his shoulder.</p><p>“...Were you really going to eat my soul?”</p><p>“What!” Immediately, Abel cracked up hard, spinning around on his heel and grasping Akira’s hand. “Haha! Of course not! I was totally fucking with you, Akira. I don’t think you can even eat a soul. I dunno. Never tried before. If you didn’t fulfill your end of the ‘contract’, I would have just killed Kamoshida anyway. But I was never going to hurt you. I’d be sad if you died.”</p><p>Of course Abel would let him believe he was going to eat his soul just to make a dick joke. That seemed very...him. A powerful frown built itself across his mouth, and he wrinkled his nose and huffed. “I really thought you were.”</p><p>Abel laughed at him. It offended him at first, but he soon found himself hauled forward, Abel’s warm palms pressed to both his cheeks and their noses bumping. “I’m so sorry. Really. I would have given up the game much sooner if I knew you were freaking out about it. I honestly didn’t think you’d believe me. I’ve been told I’m a shitty liar.” He smiled brightly and patted his cheeks, tilting Akira’s head back to meet his gaze. “I feel terrible. How can I make it up to you?”</p><p>The answer was out of his mouth without even a moment of intelligent consideration. “Would you stay in class with me? Just a little longer.”</p><p>“Wh- really?” Genuine shock flitted across his face. Then he broke into another dazzling smile, and he laughed for him again and let go of his face. “Alright. Deal. Shake on it?”</p><p>This time, Akira was the one who locked their pinkies together, and he yanked Abel in for a short but firm kiss.</p><p>“Sealed with a kiss for good measure. Right?” he murmured, pulling back and admiring the stunned look on Abel’s face. “See you in class?”</p><p>It took some time for him to recover, shaking his hair out of his face. “Yeah. See you in class, delinquent.”</p><p>Akira adjusted his glasses and allowed himself a tiny smile.</p><p>Today was going to be a good day.</p><p> </p>
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